‘Super Hornet’ Figher Jet to Carry Autonomous Anti-Ship Missile

The US Navy is planning to put Lockheed Martin’s autonomous LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) on the F/A-18 Super Hornet. This addition will make the jet capable to fire the missile that tracks and wipe out targets mostly or entirely on its own. LRASM does use an autonomous guidance technology designed to allow the weapon to avoid obstacles in the air while in flight as far as the unclassified range, 200 nautical miles (370.4 Kilometers) which suggests that the LRASM is more than capable to cover longer distances than that.

“We wanted to make sure it can exit the canister when the booster lights up and the missile stays intact. We’re furthering the maturity of our surface launched integration and planning on doing a few flight tests in the near future,” Hady Mourad, Program Director with Lockheed Martin Missiles, told Military​.com in an interview.

The research department arm of Pentagon, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA and Navy is developing the missile and plans to put it in F/A -18 Super Hornets by 2019. Just a little information about range, guiding system and technology is publicly available, the rest of the program remains secret. Officials reportedly confirmed that Air Force B-1B bomber will carry LSRASM by 2018.